Energy sufficiency, space temperature and public policy

Morley, Janine (2025) Energy sufficiency, space temperature and public policy. Buildings and Cities. ISSN 2632-6655 (In Press)

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Abstract

Reductions in absolute levels of energy demand in the Global North are increasingly understood to be important for timely net zero transitions. Accordingly, there is growing interest in sufficiency as a basis for policy. This paper explores how indoor air temperatures, as an aspect of heating and cooling demand, might be addressed. Drawing on prior reviews, it argues that sufficiency as policymaking can be distinguished from more common interpretations of sufficiency as voluntary individual-level self-moderation or post-growth socio-economic transformation or even the direct imposition of legal consumption limits. Policies could instead be oriented towards the ‘framework conditions’ that shape social practices. Moreover, common ways of articulating temperature objectives, such as limits or averages, do not reflect the distributional concern that is distinctive of a sufficiency approach. By integrating insights from social practices literature, the paper outlines how a staged thermal energy sufficiency strategy might proceed through a combination of broad guideline temperature ranges and ‘shift and improve’ objectives for lower-energy practice configurations. Working towards integrated policy packages across health, housing, welfare, energy and climate policies, this strategy would aim to create the conditions for wider debate and, over time, change within thermal norms and standards